INTERACTION DESIGN

Chapter 5
Interaction Design Basics
■ Interaction design is about developing high quality
interactive systems and products that support,
enhance, and extend the way people work,
communicate, and interact.

– Design: what it is, interventions, goals, constraints

– The design process- what happens when
– Users- who they are, what they are like …
– Scenarios- rich stories of design
– Navigation- finding your way around a system
– Iteration and prototypes- never get it right first time!
What is design?
Design: the plan, structure and model of product
Needs of Interaction Design- achieving goals within constraints.
■ Goals : the purpose of the design we are intending to produce
– Who is it for?
– Why do they want it?
■ Constraints: the limitations on the design process by external factor.
E.g. Like materials, platforms, etc
– What materials must we use?
– What standards must we adopt?
– How much can it cost?
– How much time do we have to develop it?
– Are there health and safety issues?
■ Trade-offs: choosing which goals or constraints can be relaxed so that
others can be met.
Golden Rule of design
■ The designs we produce may be different, but often the
raw materials are the same.
■ Leads to golden rule of design: Understand your
materials.
Materials
■ Understand computers
– Limitations, capacities, tools, platforms
■ Understand people
– Psychological, social aspects
– Human error
■ And their interaction
 The process of Interaction design

scenarios
what is task analysis
wanted guidelines
principles
interviews analysis
ethnography precise
design specification
what is there
vs. dialogue implement
what is wanted notations and deploy

architectures
prototype documentation
help
evaluation
heuristics
Prototyping
■ A prototype is a tangible artifact, not an abstract description
that requires interpretation.
■ Prototype simulate or animate some features of intended
system.
■ You never get it right first time
■ If at first you don’t succeed …

OK?
design prototype evaluate done!

re-design
Steps
■ Requirements - What is there and what is wanted …
– find out what is currently happening
– establishing what exactly is needed
– techniques
■ interviewing people,
■ videotaping them,
■ looking at the documents and objects that they work with,
■ observing them directly.
■ Analysis
– Ordering and understanding
– Methods/techniques
■ Scenarios ▪ capture how people carry out the various tasks that
are part of their work and life
▪ Record rich story of the interaction and make vivid
■ Task analysis actual interaction
▪ Represent the situation as it is and also the desired
situation.
Steps …
■ Design – move from what you want to how to do it
– What to do and how to decide
– Techniques
■ rules, guidelines and design principles
■ Dialog and notations
■ Iteration and prototyping - Getting it right … and finding what is really
needed!
– Humans are complex and we cannot expect to get designs right
first time.
– We therefore need to evaluate a design to see how well it is
working and where there can be improvements.
■ Implementation and deployment - Making it and getting it out there
– involves writing code, making hardware, writing documentation
and manuals
USER FOCUS
know your user
personae
cultural probes
 Users
❑ Bringing a potential user fully into the design
– Know your user
■ Who are they? → young or old, experienced, beginner.
■ Probably not like you! → individuals differ
■ Talk to them→ interviews, open-ended discussions, etc
■ Watch them → people may not tell you the whole story.
– Persona: rich picture of an imaginary person who represents your
core user group
– Use your imagination → gather info from many is too hard
– description of an ‘example’ user - not necessarily a real person
– Cultural probes: Gathering information without intrusion
■ A.k.a diary studies
■ direct observation without knowing they are seen by others
– glass to listen at wall, camera, etc
– Record themselves without taking their attention
 Scenarios
■ Stories for design: rich stories of interaction
■ A scenario is a tool used during requirements analysis to
describe a specific use of a proposed system
• Use scenarios to:
– Explore the depth – find the details
■ Explore interaction -what happens when
■ Explore cognition -what are the users thinking
■ Explore architecture -what is happening inside
– Communicate with others - designers, clients, users
– Validate other models
– Express dynamics
■ Screenshots or pictures appearance - what a system would
look like but Scenario – behaviour (how it behaves not it
look like)
 Scenarios -Example
■ A simple scenario generated by potential users of a library
catalog service is given below:
■ “Say I want to find a book by Dida Midekso. I don't remember the title but I know it was
published before 1995. I go to the catalog and enter my user password. I don't
understand why I have to do this, since I can't get into the library to use the catalog
without passing through security gates. However, once my password has been
confirmed, I am given a choice of searching by author or by date, but not the
combination of author and date. I tend to choose the author option because the date
search usually identifies too many entries. After about 30 seconds the catalog returns
saying that there are no entries for George Jeffries and showing me the list of entries
closest to the one I've sought. When I see the list, I realize that in fact I got the author's
first name wrong and it's deda, not dida. I choose the entry I want and the system
displays the location to tell me where to find the book.”

■ Scenarios are a resource that can be used and reused throughout the
design process: helping us sees what is wanted, suggesting how users
will deal with the potential design, checking that proposed
implementations will work, and generating test cases for final
evaluation.
 Navigation design

▪ The object of design is not only just a computer system or

device, but the socio-technical intervention as a whole
▪ Navigation allows your customers to find what they are
looking for without confusion or unnecessary clicks

Think about structure

■ Within a screen
■ Local (single screen) - looking from one screen or page out
■ Global (whole site) -structure of site, movement between
screens, etc
• Think of platform standards, consistency, etc
Navigation design- Level of interaction
SCREEN DESIGN AND LAYOUT
 Screen design and layout…
■ Basic principles
– Ask → Think → Design
■ Available tools
– Grouping of items
– Order of items
– Decoration - fonts, boxes, etc.
– Alignment of items
– White space between items
Screen design and layout…
■ Grouping and structure
logically together  physically together
■ Order of groups and items
– Think! - what is natural order
– Should match screen order!

Billing details: Delivery details:

Name Name
Address: … Address: …
Credit card no Delivery time
Order details:
item quantity cost/item cost
size 10 screws (boxes) 7 3.71 25.97
…… … … …
Screen design and layout…

■ Decoration
– Use boxes to group
logical items
– Use fonts for emphasis,
headings
– But not too many!!
Screen design and layout…

■ Alignment – text: Left hand side or right hand side, etc

– Alignment – names

✓
Alan Dix Alan Dix Dix , Alan
Janet Finlay Janet Finlay Finlay, Janet
Gregory Abowd Gregory Abowd Abowd, Gregory


Beale, Russell

✓
Russell Beale Russell Beale

532.56
179.3
256.317
15
73.948
– Alignment – numbers
1035
In most cases numbers are right aligned 3.142
497.6256
Screen design and layout…

■ Space: unused section of doc

– Space to separate

– Space to structure

– Space to Highlight
 USER ACTION AND CONTROL

entering information
knowing what to do
affordances
 Entering information
Name: Alan Dix
Address: Lancaster
■ Forms, dialogue boxes

✓
– Presentation + data input
– Similar layout issues Name: Alan Dix
– Alignment - N.B. different label lengths Address: Lancaster

■ Logical layout
– Use task analysis
– Groupings
– Natural order for entering information
?
Name: Alan Dix
Address: Lancaster

■ Top-bottom, left-right (depending on culture)

■ Set tab order for keyboard entry
Knowing what to do
■ What is active what is passive
– Where do you click
– Where do you type
■ Consistent style helps
– e.g. web underlined links
■ Labels and icons
– Standards for common actions
– Language – bold = current state or action
■ Affordance for screen objects
– Button–like object ‘affords’ mouse click
– Also cultural – buttons ‘afford’ pushing
■ Culture of computer use
– Icons ‘afford’ clicking
– Or even double clicking … not like real buttons!
DESIGN
RULES
Chapter 6
 Design rules
■ The goal of interaction design
▪ Designing for maximum usability

■ Principles of usability
– general understanding

■ Standards and guidelines

– direction for design

■ Design patterns
– capture and reuse design knowledge
 Design Rules
▪ Helps designers in advance to determine the usability
consequences of their design decisions.

▪ Design rules
▪ rules a designer can follow in order to increase the usability of
the eventual system.

▪ Involves principles, standards and guidelines to direct design

activity
▪Principles
▪ are the most abstract design rules, with high
generality and low authority.
• Standards
• are specific design rules, high in authority and limited
in application,
• Guidelines
• tend to be lower in authority and more general in
application.
PRINCIPLES OF
USABILITY
Principles to support usability
■ Learnability
– The ease with which new users can use the system
effectively
■ Flexibility
– The multiplicity of ways the user and the system
exchange information
■ Effectiveness
– The level of support provided to the user to achieve
its goals successfully
■ Memorability
– The ease with which user can remember the use
and function of the system

Faculty of Computing | Bahir Dar Institute of Technology | Bahir Dar University

Principles affecting learnability:
– Predictability: to be able to predict the result of an interaction
■ Determining the effect of future actions based on past
interaction history
– Feedback: the system provides feedback about the effect of
the interaction
– Familiarity: correlation between the user’s existing knowledge
and the knowledge required to use the interaction
– Generalization: association/correlation functions
■ e.g. drawing rectangle will be the same as drawing square;
close/open window will be the same as in other MS word
application
– Consistency: in naming, color use, command invocation, …

■ Advantages
■ reduces training time and costs
■ staff become effective more quickly

Faculty of Computing | Bahir Dar Institute of Technology | Bahir Dar University

Flexibility (1)

■ Examples:
– Input/output in different forms
■ Inches/cm, fixed point/decimal, % or fixed part, …
– Input may be output and vice versa:
■ Draw line, output: coordinates
■ Give coordinates, output: draw line
– Order of tasks is not fixed

■ System driven interaction hinders flexibility, user-driven interaction

favors it
■ Multi-treading allows to support more than one task at the time

Faculty of Computing | Bahir Dar Institute of Technology | Bahir Dar University

Flexibility (2)

■ Customization:
– Adaptability: user can adapt the user interface
– Adaptivity: The user interface can be adapted by the system.
Eg. System detects night/day light, adjusts brightness ; system
sleeps while users are no more interacting
– Personalization: user interface is tailored towards the needs of
the individual user

■ Advantages
– allows reorganization of tasks and business

Faculty of Computing | Bahir Dar Institute of Technology | Bahir Dar University

Effectiveness
■ A level of support for a user to achieve its goal
sucsseffully
■ Principles affecting effectiveness:
– Ability to observe the internal state of the system
– Ability to take corrective actions once an error has been
recognized
– Response time
– Task completeness: are all user tasks supported by the
system?
– Task adequacy: match of the task as understood by the user
and supported by the system

■ Advantages:
– higher productivity

Faculty of Computing | Bahir Dar Institute of Technology | Bahir Dar University

 Standards
■ Set by national or international bodies to ensure compliance by a
large community of designers.
■ Standards require sound underlying theory and slowly changing
technology
■ Can be applied to both hardware and the software used to build the
interactive system
■ Hardware standards more common than software
■ hardware is more difficult and expensive to change than software
■ Describing explicit measurements (metrics) for usability
■ Used to force large communities to abide the so-called authority.
■ British Standards Institution, The International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) and National Military Agency(HW&SW)
■ ISO Standard 9241
ISO 9241 -- the 3 Circuital Usability Issues
Guidelines
■ Detailed design specifications for actual implementation
– More suggestive and general
■ Many textbooks and reports full of guidelines
■ Abstract guidelines (principles) applicable during early life
cycle activities
■ Detailed guidelines (style guides) applicable during later
life cycle activities
■ Understanding justification for guidelines aids in resolving
conflicts.
HCI design patterns
■ Patterns are an approach to capturing the stories of successful
design and reusing this knowledge again and again in new situations

– an invariant solution to a recurrent problem within a specific context

– Just learn from examples

■ Characteristics of patterns
■ Capture design practice not theory - they capture design practice and
embody knowledge about successful solutions

■ Capture the essential common properties of good examples of design - they

do not tell the designer how to do something but what needs to be done and
why
 HCI design patterns
■ Represent design knowledge at varying levels: social, organisational,
conceptual, detailed

■ Embody values and can express what is humane in interface design -

they are not neutral but embody values within their rationale

■ A pattern language should be generative and assist in the

development of complete designs

■ Are intuitive and readable and can therefore be used for

communication between all stakeholders
 Golden rules and Heuristics
■ Is there a simpler way?
■ A number of advocates presented sets of ‘golden rules’ or
heuristics
– Useful check list for good design
– Better design using these than using nothing!
■ Some of them are
– Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
– Norman’s 7 Principles
– Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics
Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
1. Strive for consistency.
■ consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar
situations
■ identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help
screens; and
■ consistent commands should be employed
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
– the sytem help users to reduce the number of interactions and
increase the pace of interaction. Eg. abbreviations, function keys,
hidden commands, and macro facilities
Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
3. Offer informative feedback
– Some operations (major actions) requires system feedback

4. Design dialog to yield closure

– Sequences of actions should be organized into groups showing
beginning, middle, and end
Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
5. Offer simple error handling
– Design the system ,as much as possible , to be able to detect the
error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling
the error
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
– the system feature should help users relieve anxiety through
reversing errors committed
– encourages exploration of unfamiliar options (try and error)
Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
7. Support internal locus of control
– design the system that makes users sense that they are in
charge of the system and that the system responds to their
actions.
– Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather
than the responders (sense of belongingness)

8. Reduce short-term memory load

– The system help to solve the limitation of short-term memory
– E.g. STM requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page
displays be consolidated, window-motion frequency be reduced,
– Recognition over Recall
Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics
1. Visibility of system status
– Help users know the systems status through appropriate
feedback within reasonable time.
2. Match between system and the real world
– the system speak the same language with user
– Keep real world conventions in natural and logical order
3. User control and freedom
– help users recover from errors made by mistake (‘emergency
exit’)
– Support undo and redo.
4. Consistency and standards
– should meet and keep applicable standards
Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics
5. Error prevention
– The system should have mechanisms eliminate errors before
being happened
6. Recognition rather than recall
– The user should not have to remember information of the
system
– Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily
retrievable whenever appropriate.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of use
– The system should help to both inexperienced and
experienced users.
– Allow users to tailor frequent actions
Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
– Your system should contain only relevant information
– Unnecessary and extra information diminishes the visibility of
relevant once. E.g. Dialogues
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
▪ Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes),
▪ precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a
solution.
10. Help and documentation
– The system should have to provide help and documentation
– It should not be too much
Norman’s 7 Principles
1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head
2. Simplify the structure of tasks
3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and
Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right (user intention should map clearly)
5. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
6. Design for error(recovery)
7. When all else fails, standardize
UNIVERSAL
DESIGN

▪Universal design principles

▪Multi channels and applications
▪Multi-modal vs. Multi-media
Universal Design principles
✓ Equitable (for all) use
✓ Flexibility in use
✓ Simple and intuitive to use
✓ Perceptible information
✓ Tolerance for error
✓ Low physical effort
✓ Size and space for approach and use
Multi channels and applications
✓ Multi-Sensory Systems
– More than one sensory channel in interaction
■ e.g. sounds, text, hypertext, animation, video, gestures,
vision
– The 5 senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) together
provide a fuller interaction with the natural world
■ We cannot (yet) use • taste not many • smell

✓ Used in a range of applications:

– particularly good for users with special needs, and virtual reality
 Available senses and tools
Speech
■ Human beings have a great and natural mastery of
speech
– makes it difficult to appreciate the complexities
but it’s an easy medium for communication
■ co-articulation
– the effect of context on the sound
■ syntax – structure of sentences
■ semantics – meaning of sentences

Problems
■ The syntax of semantically similar sentences may vary.
■ Background noises can interfere.
■ Different people speak differently
Speech Synthesis (zer) and Speech Recognition (zer)

Speech Synthesis
▪ The generation of speech
▪ Useful for natural and familiar way of receiving information
Problem
- needs headphones
- creates noise in the workplace
- Non-Speech Sounds - bongs, bangs, squeaks, clicks etc.
– commonly used for warnings and alarms
– Language independent, unlike speech
Auditory Icons and Earcon

Use natural sounds to represent different types of object or action

■ Natural sounds have associated semantics which can be mapped
onto similar meanings in the interaction.
■
e.g. throwing something away
~ the sound of smashing glass
■ Problem: not all things have associated meanings
Auditory Icons and Earcon
An earcon is a brief, distinctive sound used to represent a specific event.
■ They are a common feature of computer operating systems, where
a warning or an error message is accompanied by a distinctive tone or
combination of tones.
■ Other examples would include the sound that indicates an
incoming message in a chat utility.
■ Synthetic sounds used to convey information.
■ Structured combinations of notes (motives ) represent actions and
objects
Touch and Electronic Braile

Haptic interaction
■ tactile sensation; vibrations on the skin
■ Information on shape, texture, resistance,
temperature,
comparative spatial factors
■ example technologies
– electronic braille displays
 Touch and Electronic Braile
Handwriting is another communication mechanism which
we are used in day-to-day life
– Handwriting consists of complex strokes and spaces
– Captured by digitizing tablet
■ strokes transformed to sequence of dots
– large tablets available
■ suitable for digitizing maps and technical drawings
– smaller devices, some incorporating thin screens to
display the information
■ PDAs such as Palm Pilot
■ tablet PCs
Users with disabilities
Visual impairment-screen readers, SonicFinder
■ hearing impairment-text communication, gesture,
captions
■ physical impairment-speech I/O, eyegaze, gesture,
predictive systems
(e.g. Reactive keyboard)
■ Speech impairment-speech synthesis, text
communication
■ Dyslexia=problem to read, spell, etc-speech input, output
■ Autism-communication, education
 Users with disabilities
PLUS
■ age groups-older people e.g. disability aids, memory aids,
communication
tools to prevent social isolation
– children e.g. appropriate input/output devices, involvement in
design process
■ cultural differences-influence of nationality, generation, gender,
race, sexuality, class, religion, political persuasion etc. on
interpretation of interface features
– e.g. interpretation and acceptability of language, cultural
symbols, gesture and colour
Multi-modal
Multi-modal systems
– use more than one
sense (or mode ) of
interaction
e.g. visual and aural
(hearing) senses: a text
processor may speak
the words as well as
echoing them to the
screen
■ Helps to consider of
varieties of users
– Young vs. Old
– Normal vs. Disabled
– Etc
Multi-media
Multi-media systems
– use a number of different media to communicate information
E.g. use video, animation, text and still images: different media all
using the visual mode of interaction;
may also use sounds, both speech and non-speech: two more
media, now using a different mode
EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
AND UNIVERSAL DESIGN
Chapter 7
EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
 Evaluation Techniques

■ Evaluating Designs
■ Evaluating Implementations
■ Observation methods
■ Query Techniques
■ Physiological methods
Evaluation Techniques

▪ Evaluation
– Tests usability and functionality of system
– Evaluates both design and implementation
– Occurs in laboratory, field and/or in collaboration with users

▪ Goals of Evaluation
– Assess extent of system functionality
– Assess effect of interface on user
– Identify specific problems
 EVALUATING
DESIGNS
Via Experts

Cognitive Walkthrough
Heuristic Evaluation
Review-based evaluation
Cognitive Walkthrough
Proposed by Polson and Lewis(1990)(for all SDLC stages)
– Evaluates design on how well it supports user in learning task
– Usually performed by expert in cognitive psychology
– Expert ‘walks through’ design to identify potential problems using
psychological principles
■ For each task walkthrough considers
– What impact will interaction have on user?
– What cognitive processes are required?
– What learning problems may occur?
■ Analysis focuses on goals and knowledge: does the design lead the user to
generate the correct goals?
Heuristic Evaluation
■ Proposed by Nielsen and Molich.(Early Stage)
■ Usability criteria (heuristics) are identified
■ Design examined by experts to see if these are violated.
■ Example heuristics
– System behaviour is predictable
– System behaviour is consistent
– Feedback is provided
■ Heuristic evaluation `debugs' design.
 Review-based evaluation
■ Results from the literature used to support or refute
parts of design.
■ Care needed to ensure results are transferable to new
design.
■ Model-based evaluation
EVALUATING IMPLEMENTATIONS
With Users
Experimental Evaluation
■ Controlled evaluation of specific aspects of interactive behaviour.
■ Evaluator chooses hypothesis to be tested
■ A number of experimental conditions are considered which differ only in
the value of some controlled variable.
■ Changes in behavioural measure are attributed to different conditions
■ Experimental factors:
– Subjects
■ who – representative, sufficient sample
– Variables
■ things to modify and measure
– Hypothesis
■ what you’d like to show
– Experimental design
■ how you are going to do it
 OBSERVATIONAL METHODS

Think Aloud
Cooperative evaluation
Post-task walkthroughs
Think Aloud
■ User observed performing task
■ User asked to describe what he is doing and why, what he
thinks is happening etc.

■ Advantages
– Simplicity - requires little expertise
– Can provide useful insight
– Can show how system is actually use (in sue)
■ Disadvantages
– Subjective
– Selective
– Act of describing may alter task performance
 Cooperative evaluation
■ Variation on think aloud
■ User collaborates in evaluation
■ Both user and evaluator can ask each other questions

■ Additional advantages
– Less constrained and easier to use
– User is encouraged to criticize system
– Clarification possible
Post-task walkthroughs
■ Transcript played back to participant for comment
– Immediately → fresh in mind
– Delayed → evaluator has time to identify questions
■ Useful to identify reasons for actions and alternatives
considered
■ Necessary in cases where think aloud is not possible
 QUERY TECHNIQUES

Interviews
Questionnaires
Interviews
■ Analyst questions user on one-to -one basis usually
based on prepared questions
■ Informal, subjective and relatively cheap

■ Advantages
– Can be varied to suit context
– Issues can be explored more fully
– Can elicit user views and identify unanticipated problems
■ Disadvantages
– Very subjective
– Time consuming
Questionnaires
■ Set of fixed questions given to users
■ Advantages
– Quick and reaches large user group
– Can be analysed more rigorously
■ Disadvantages
– Less flexible
– Less investigating
■ Need careful design
– What information is required?
– How are answers to be analysed?
■ Styles of question
– Open-ended
– Scalar
– Multi-choice
– Ranked
 Physiological Methods

Eye tracking
Physiological measurement
 Eye tracking
■ Head or desk mounted equipment tracks the position
of the eye.
■ Eye movement reflects the amount of cognitive
processing a display requires.
■ Measurements include
– Fixations: eye maintains stable position. Number and
duration indicate level of difficulty with display
– Saccades: rapid eye movement from one point of interest to
another
– Scan paths: moving straight to a target with a short fixation
at the target is optimal
Physiological measurements
■ Emotional response linked to physical changes
■ These may help determine a user’s reaction to an interface
■ Measurements include:
– Heart activity, including blood pressure, volume and pulse.
– Activity of sweat glands: Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)
– Electrical activity in muscle: electromyogram (EMG)
– Electrical activity in brain: electroencephalogram (EEG)
■ Some difficulty in interpreting these physiological responses - more
research needed
Choosing an Evaluation Method
when in process: design vs. implementation
how objective: subjective vs. objective
type of measures: qualitative vs. quantitative
level of information: high level vs. low level
level of interference: obtrusive vs. unobtrusive
resources available: time, subjects,
equipment, expertise
USER SUPPORT

Chapter 8
User Support
■ Issues
– Different types of support at different times
– Implementation and presentation both important
– All need careful design

■ Types of user support

– Quick reference,
– Task specific help,
– Full explanation,
– Tutorial
User Support
■ Provided by help and documentation
– Help - problem-oriented and specific
– Documentation - system-oriented and general
– Same design principles apply to both

■ Design of user support

User support
■ There is often an implicit assumption that if an
interactive system is properly designed it will require little
or no help or training.
■ Users have different requirements for support at
different times.
■ The type of assistance users require varies and is
dependent on many factors:
– their familiarity with the system,
– the job they are trying to do, and so on.

Note: designing and creating a sophisticated interactive

system doesn’t mean help/documentation is not
required
Requirements of user support
■ Determines the design of the ideal help system - what would it look
like?
– Availability
■ continuous access concurrent to main application
■ the user needs to be able to access help at any time during his
interaction with the system(24/7)
– Accuracy and completeness
■ help matches and covers actual system behaviour
– Consistency
■ between different parts of the help system and paper
documentation
– Robustness
■ correct error handling and predictable behaviour
– Flexibility
■ allows user to interact in a way appropriate to experience and task
– Unobtrusiveness
■ does not prevent the user continuing with works
Approaches to user support
■ User support comes in a number of styles:
– command-based methods
– context-sensitive help
– tutorial help
– online documentation
– wizards and assistants
– adaptive help.
Approaches to user support
■ Command assistance
– User requests help on particular command
e.g., UNIX man, DOS help
– Good for quick reference
– Assumes user know what to look for

■ Command prompts
– Provide information about correct usage when an error occurs
– Good for simple syntactic errors
– Also assumes knowledge of the command
Approaches to user support

■ Context sensitive help

– help request interpreted according to context in which it
occurs. e.g. tooltips
■ On-line tutorials
– user works through basics of application in a test
environment.
– can be useful but are often in flexible.
■ On-line documentation
– paper documentation is made available on computer.
– continually available in common medium
– can be difficult to browse
– hypertext used to support browsing.
Wizards and assistants
■ wizards
– task specific tool leads the user through task, step by step, using
user’s answers to specific questions
– example: resumé
– useful for safe completion of complex or infrequent tasks
– constrained task execution so limited flexibility
– must allow user to go back

■ assistants
– monitor user behaviour and offer contextual advice
– can be irritating e.g. MS paperclip
– must be under user control e.g. XP smart tags
Adaptive Help Systems
■ Use knowledge of the context, individual user, task, domain
and instruction to provide help adapted to user's needs.
■ Different from static help system- provide the same help for
many users
■ provides help information relevant to a specific user needs
■ Problems
– knowledge requirements considerable
– who has control of the interaction?
– what should be adapted?
– what is the scope of the adaptation?
 Issues in adaptive help
■ Initiative
– does the user retain control or can the system direct the
interaction?
– can the system interrupt the user to offer help?

■ Effect
– what is going to be adapted and what information is needed to do
this?
– only model what is needed.

■ Scope
– is modelling at application or system level?
– latter more complex
e.g. expertise varies between applications.
 KNOWLEDGE
REPRESENTATION
User modelling
Knowledge representation: User modelling

■ Every interactive system that is built incorporates some model of

the user for whom it is intended.
■ In many systems this model is the designer’s view of the user and
is implicit within the design.
– The designer has in mind a ‘typical’ user, and builds the interface
accordingly.
■ Other systems allow the user to provide a model of himself/herself
around which the system will be configured.
Knowledge Representation: User modelling

■ All help systems have a model of the user

– single, generic user (non-intelligent)
– user-configured model (adaptable)
■ user is able to adapt one's own environment to suit preferences
– system-configure model (adaptive)
■ system construct and maintain a model of the user based on
data gleaned from monitoring the user’s interaction
Approaches to user modelling
■ Quantification
– user moves between levels of expertise
– based on quantitative measure of what he/she knows.
■ Stereotypes
– user is classified into a particular category.
■ Overlay
– idealized model of expert use is constructed
– actual use compared to ideal
– model may contain the commonality or difference
Special case: user behaviour compared to known error
catalogue
Knowledge Representation: Domain and task modelling

■ Covers
– this knowledge may include command use, common
errors and common tasks.
– Users current task
■ Usually involves analysis of command sequences.
■ Problems
– representing tasks
– Interleaved tasks
– user intention
Knowledge Representation: Advisory strategy

■ involves choosing the correct style of advice for a given

situation.
e.g. reminder, tutorial, etc.

■ few intelligent help systems model advisory strategy, but

choice of strategy is still important.
Problems with knowledge representation and
modelling

– knowledge acquisition
– resources
– interpretation of user behaviour

■ All of the modeling approaches described rely heavily

on techniques for knowledge representation from
artificial intelligence.
■ Techniques for Knowledge Representation
 Techniques for Knowledge Representation

■ rule based (e.g. logic, production rules)

– knowledge presented as rules and facts
– interpreted using inference mechanism
– can be used in relatively large domains.
■ frame based (e.g. semantic network)
– knowledge stored in structures with slots to be filled
– useful for a small domain.
■ network based
– knowledge represented as relationships between facts
– can be used to link frames.
■ example based
– knowledge represented implicitly within decision structure
– trained to classify rather than programmed with rules
– requires little knowledge acquisition
Designing user support
■ User support is not an `add on’
– should be designed integrally with the system.
■ Concentrate on content and context of help.
■ Design of user support must take account of:
– Presentation and Implementation Issues
Presentation issues
■ How is help requested?
– command, button, function (on/off), separate application
■ How is help displayed?
– new window, whole screen, split screen,
– pop-up boxes, hint icons
■ Effective presentation requires
– clear, familiar, consistent language
– instructional rather than descriptive language
– avoidance of blocks of text
– clear indication of summary and example information
Implementation issues

Is help What resources are available?

– operating system command – screen space
– meta command – memory capacity
– application – speed

Structure of help data Issues

– single file – flexibility and extensibility
– file hierarchy – hard copy
– database – browsing
Summary
Users have different requirements for support at different times.
User support should be:
– available but Unobtrusiveness
– accurate and robust
– consistent and flexible.
User support comes in a number of styles:
– command-based methods
– context-sensitive help
– tutorial help
– online documentation
– wizards and assistants
– adaptive help.
Design of user support must take account of:
– presentation issues
– implementation issues.
COURSE SUMMARY
Summary of the course
– What is HCI, Human , Computer and Interaction
– Design, development and evaluation of ‘interactive’
system
– ‘interactive' = ‘good/usable’ system interface - How do
we create(design and develop) interactive systems
■ User focus
■ Principles
■ Design patterns
■ Design and development
■ Evaluation, testing, and support